Football: Koblenz Stadium. In the early '70's worked for LB of Harringey which was twinned with Koblenz. The playing surface was excellent and the setting near the Rhine was superb. The team made up of employees played 2 easy warm up games to find that the last game in the stadium was against Koblenz Town who were semi-professional. To our credit the result was 0-0. The day before we were taken to a lager brewery which after a tour provided free drinks. I wonder why? Rugby Union.: London Hospitals ground just off the A12. Or any Bank or hospital grounds around London which were like immaculate. Cricket : Dunstall CC. A privately owned club in the grounds of a "stately" home in a beautiful parkland setting near Burton on Trent. Russell Osman (ex Ipswich Town and England) was an 18 year old fast bowler there and an occasional appearance by Geoff Bourne ( ex Derby County) also. I just made up the numbers!!
I played at the University of Tennessee baseball stadium please log in to view this image I have also played in Rickwood Field which is the oldest Professional Baseball Stadium still in existence. It has these supper cool hand painted outfield walls. please log in to view this image please log in to view this image
Boothferry Park, played a team from Russia who were the crew of a ship we worked with and were visiting Hull.
I was a referee and in the 70s I lived in the West Country. My first ''big game" after reaching Class 1 status was as linesman at Tiverton Park, the home of Bath City who were then in the Southern League (this was my so called introduction to higher grade football). I was told to run with the home team's forwards in front of the main stand. The touchline is only a few yards away from the crowd and every time I gave offside against Bath City or flagged for any infringement against them I could hear every insult and four letter word.
My school rugby team won the Wilf Spaven trophy which was a knockout competition played as curtain raisers at Craven Park. I think I played there about five times in total and scored a try at the Rovers v Hull game in front of a packed house.
An evening game at Hartlepool United's Victoria Park under floodlights in a civil service cup competition. I played for the Dept. of Education & Science against Inland Revenue. We won 2-1 and I scored the winner - pretty exciting stuff for a nineteen year old.
I played at loads of stadiums, the Bernabeau, Camp Nou, Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge, The Emirates, Anfield, San Siro, you name it. Sometimes wish I still had a plalystation to play FIFA on.
When i lived in Scunthorpe during my teen years i played Sunday league for a pub team called The Brumby (circa 1984), we played in the Scunthorpe district second division league. Scunthorpe is twinned with a town on the outskirts of Paris called Clamart and the pub i played for had arranged to go over to Clamart to play a friendly game against them sponsored by local Scunthorpe Buisnesses, unfortunately somewhere in the conversations the fact that we played in the second division of the Scunthorpe Sunday league ended up translated into French as the English second division back in the day when we had Divisions 1,2,3,4. So as a matter of honour they moved the game from their humble park ground to the Stade Sebastien Charlety in the south of Paris, at the time it was a 30,000 seater stadium. Needless to say once we had picked ourselves up off the floor we ended up picking the ball out of our net.....15 times. To be fair to them once we had told them about who we actually were they had a good laugh with us and a fair few pints of Alcoholic beverage was downed that night and the rest of the weekend. please log in to view this image upload gif please log in to view this image upload pictures free
Played my football at Liverpool University sports ground, which locals said was a better playing surface than Anfield or Goodison Park. Also played cricket for Liverpool Uni against Bradford Uni at Bradford Park Avenue straight after Yorkshire had played Lancashire.
I was very lucky to play rugby union for the navy vs army at twickenham 2 years on the bounce, over 60,000 in the stadium on both occasions as well.
When I used to live in Athens we had our field day at Panathenaic Stadium which was the first modern Olympic Stadium. So I have thrown discus, javelin and shotput there. please log in to view this image
